Baseball: US victory pitched straight at Hollywood

Before the baseball players of America, a jumble of tobacco-chewing veterans and some hopeful kids blinking in the light of celebrity for the first time, beat Cuba for Olympic gold here last night, there was the strongest feeling they were just the latest consignment of fodder for the Fidel Castro ball-playing machine.

It was summed up in the introduction to one bleak report last weekend when Cuba outplayed the Americans in the round-robin phase: Godless Communism 6, The Big Dodger in the Sky 1.

Last night, however, The Big Dodger hit back with such poise and cold-eyed determination Hollywood executives are probably already debating whether the market can stand one more baseball movie.

This one would feature a 6ft, 22-year-old pitcher from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, named Ben Sheets.

But then as anyone who has ever watched a baseball picture knows, a pitcher, especially a young one, is nothing without a world-weary old catcher with a drooping moustache and a stream of impeccable one-liners delivered under the heaviest pressure.

This part goes to Pat Borders, a 37-year-old former World Series hero with Toronto Blue Jays who nows spins out his days with the Durham Bulls, of North Carolina.

Between them, the kid and the old catcher stopped Castro's baseball army stone dead.

Power hitters like Yesser Gomez and Omar Linares were caught in the iron trap of the American infield, and Sheets went the distance with a right arm that seemed to grow stronger with every innings.

The United States won 4-0, Sheets struck out five Cubans and conceded just three hits.

Sheets' 73-year-old manager, Tommy Lasorda, who is what Bill Shankly of Liverpool would have been if his father had emigrated from the mines of Ayrshire to those of Pennsylvania, rushed on the field crying: "My baby – my wonderful baby."

Lasorda led Los Angeles into the World Series four times, but now he was declaring: "I've had many wonderful experiences, but believe me nothing compares to this. This is the greatest because when I won with the Dodgers it meant that the fans of the Giants and the Yankees were upset. Now we win this and all America is happy.

"Do you guys know what happened out there? The first Cuban pitched at 93 miles per hour. The second pitched it at 97. And the third pitched it at 100. But my babies won it... it's incredible."

One of the babies, the moustachioed Borders, said: "Hey, I want to go out and play 'em again."

It was the mildest mockery. Lasorda may be a schmaltzy old pro but you don't take four teams to the World Series without knowing a little about the chemistry of a dressing room, and here he made his raggedy army believe that they could break down the ageing Cuban baseball machine.

His first task was to make a young hero, and Sheets fitted the bill perfectly. Big, strong and with a slow southern drawl, all he needed was the conviction that he did indeed have the talent to win an Olympic gold before continuing his climb up the ladder of the Milwaukeee Brewers' organisation.

Said Lasorda: "We had this day planned for Ben to win it all. I knew he could do it. The kid has ice water in his veins. He doesn't scare. He didn't scare in the biggest game of his life. He's so strong. Watch him progress now. He's going to be a great player." As Lasorda spoke, a slight blush came to Sheets' cheeks.

Naturally, he deferred to the catcher. "It was honour to pitch to Pat Borders," said the kid.

"He talked me through the game. All I did was pitch to him all night. He made it easy."

It was never that because if the Cubans are indeed on the slide, if the Americans are finally squeezing them with the decision to bring in professionals, albeit from outside current Major League action, Castro's men can still muster formidable talent, and a fierce will.

It is partly induced by the impassioned blandishments of the baseball-obsessed Castro. He sat beside Cuba's foreign minister, Felipe Perez, when he delivered a fierce lecture to the team before their flight to Australia.

"Each of you," said Perez, "must be ready to face aggression, harassment, blackmail attempts and bribery. If anyone is thinking of betraying his people, stabbing his fatherland in the back – now or later – that person will be incapable of looking us in the eyes."

A heavy farewell message, indeed, but in recent years for every superstar Cuban athlete ready to run the course – or the bases – for Fidel, another one has slipped away to the land of opportunity – most notably the brilliant Hernandez brothers, Livan, who pitched brilliantly for Florida Marlins in their unlikely World Series triumph, and Orlando "El Duque", a banker on the New York Yankees' pitching roster.

Here, the remnants of Fidel's dream team showed clear signs of physical and ideological fatigue. However, they did manage some nifty machismo in the first game, notably when America's right fielder Ernie Young was hit by a pitch, and then barged into the Cuban catcher Ariel Pestano.

The US short stop, Adam Everett said: "That is the way it goes when you play Cuba. They try to intimidate you and make you play scared, but it didn't work. We will play them again."

Last night they did it with a raging commitment that made old Tommy Lasorda's eyes sparkle. Everett initiated a spell-binding double play in the seventh, which, according to one somewhat biased observer, sent Karl Marx scurrying from his seat to beat the traffic.

First base Doug Mientkiewicz made one electric stop which surely sent a current through the entire team, and Mike Neill, who not so long ago was thinking of swapping his life down in the farm league for some time on a surfing beach, hit another vital home run and batted one in before ending the game with a sublime running catch. Young maintained momentum with a vital hit.

"I'm so proud of these guys," said the old baseball hand.

"I read that the United States and the major leagues had let us down, given us a poor team – and I was outraged. I had a team of players who were already great or who were going to be great. I knew that from the start. What has happened here has proved something I've always believed. What's important is not which team is most talented, but which teams want it more. By the end of these Olympics this team wanted it as badly as they ever wanted anything and so they got it. Everyone pulled something out and Ben Sheets pitched a great, great game."

Everyone was smiling now, even the catcher. Someone asked Pat Borders: "What was the best – being the most valuable player when Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series, or winning a gold medal here?"

You don't catch an old catcher as easily as that. "We're talking apples and oranges," said Borders.

"The World Series was a high point of my career, and so then it was the best. Coming here and winning an Olympic gold was something I hadn't expected, hadn't planned on. So now it is the best. Yes, right now I like oranges."

The victory was only the fourth for a U.S. team against 25 defeats to Cuba in official championship events.

Fidel Castro was not available for comment.

- INDEPENDENT